The Netherlands ranks the world's top 10 best travel cities — Singapore takes the crown

▲Clarke Quay in Singapore (Photo by Reporter Lin Shiwen)

By Rita

Although not long ago the renowned travel websiteLonely Planet ranked the world’s top 10 best travel cities with Taiwan’s Kaohsiung taking fifth place globally,different survey agencies yield vastly different results. A survey conducted by Dutch travel agency Travelbird was released on the 4th. They first screened the 500 most popular cities worldwide, then narrowed it down to 100, and finally conducted a vote based on seven indices and three categories. The top spot went to Singapore, with no Taiwanese cities making the list.

The Lonely Planet website pointed outthat the first major category involved agencies first conducting a survey on the“city”itself. They asked 15,000 travel journalists to share their impressions of these cities, while also gathering online reviews from travelers about airports, trains, and buses. Additionally, they reviewed existing data on people’s perceptions of the “safety” of these cities.

The second major category relates to“people.”They referred to the United Nations’ World Happiness Index to understand the happiness levels of local residents, and further linked this to the “openness” of residents toward travelers—such as travelers’ Couchsurfing experiences in the area, the English proficiency of residents, and so on.

Lastly, there’s the issue of whether “local tourism is overloaded.” This topic has been widely discussed recently, and thus was also treated as a key focus in this survey. It looked at the ratio of tourists to local residents during peak travel seasons, the number of legally available beds, and local residents’ perceptions of tourists, among other factors.

And here are the top 10 countries that performed well across the three categories:

1. Singapore
2. Stockholm
3. Helsinki
4. San Francisco
5. Rotterdam
6. Lisbon
7. Tokyo
8. Oslo
9. Zurich
10. Orlando